“Ways Of Collapsing Art and Science Into Enigmatic Taxa”
6 – 8pm
Explore skin, gravitational waves, radiation, dry ice and other lively materials in an exploratory workshop using GSR, laser interferometry, ECG, and data logging / recording technologies with Ben Freeth.
We propose using uncontrollable voltages to explore ways in which both the knowledge domains of art / science and categories of human / non-human might be collapsed into “Enigmatic Taxa // Incertae sedis”. In a promiscuous mode build cloud chambers, detect and record radiation, make sound, explore the electrical properties of your skin, investigate existing research grade skin cell data sets, isolate the control voltages of your heart and visualize gravitational waves. Sonify this data.
The workshop brought together people interested in sound, art, science, installation, electronics, sensors, data and naturecultures.
Specifics
We explored two topics:
1) Human – Biological Data. This involved using diy devices to measure your data – both Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Electro Cardiogram (ECG). Skin Data – we explored existing data sets on cell populations within human skin sonifying the data using the open source software Pure Data. Visualising frequencies from resonances used to generate the datasets featuring Lissajous Curves, Oscilloscopes and function generators.
2) Non-human. We experimented creating sound producing instruments from assemblages of Dry Ice, Cloud Chambers, Radiation, Geiger Counters, Pure Data, Arduino, Raspberry Pi. Explore laser inferometry as a method for detecting gravitational waves.
Outputs – Ontologically flattening the human and non-human
What new powers or capacities emerge through these promiscuous relations – is the assemblage capable of things the parts are not? To move towards answering this question the work was to be presented as a short lived multichannel installation piece.
Ben Freeth – Bio
Ben Freeth is an artist, musician, and researcher with an interdisciplinary practice using data, networked technologies, sonification, prototype electronics and marine algae to create sculptural installations and contemporary sonic performances enabling entangled encounters within “naturecultures” (a necessary entwining of the natural and the cultural, the bodily and the mind). This involves an exploration of sound and its ability to create relations within nature cultures, humans, environments, and technology. How does sound mediate our understanding of specific naturecultures? And how can contemporary multidisciplinary art practices articulate and explore the relations between sound and environments within naturecultures through sculptural installation and performance.
This event is part of Practice Makes Practice, an artist development programme run by artists for artists. Practice makes Practice focuses on developing artistic talent and equipping artists with the necessary skills to manage their practice, bridging the gap between art school, studio practice, the gallery and beyond.
The event has been programmed alongside The Occassion Collectives, whose current exhibition Echoes of Abstraction II and The Bottomless Pit of Outros brings together newly commissioned work by artists Jamie Cook, Adam Goodwin, James Pickering and Paul Trickett, alongside highlights from the Laing Art Gallery’s modern and contemporary painting collection. The exhibition explores and is inspired by the legacy of abstract art, and has been organised in partnership with The Laing Art Gallery.
The partnership between the Laing Art Gallery and The NewBridge Project has been devised with the dual aim of supporting emerging artists from the region, as well as creating a new platform for The NewBridge Project at a time of both flux and renewed ambition as they relocate to new premises at Carliol House, Market Street. The exhibition will be accompanied by events as part of Practice Makes Practice, an artist’s development programme initiated by The NewBridge Project and run by artists for artists.
This project has been made possible with the support of the Newcastle University Institute for Creative Arts Practice.
Accessibility: NewBridge Studios has limited accessibility, this event will take place in the Co-Work space of NewBridge Studios. We regret, due to the age of our building and its change of use we do not have a functioning lift. Please contact us prior to visiting if you require additional information regarding access and facilities
